Tuesday, September 19, 2006

How Hindi press brought shame to journalism in MP

It was a news no newspaper could have missed. The chief of state police using the name of a businessman as his son's grandfather to get the son admission into engineering college under the NRI quota.

Once the court discovered this fraud and asked for inquiry in the incident, the newspapers could have easily published this sensational news. But not a single Hindi newspaper that commands large circulation dared to print it.

The Dainik Bhaskar, the Dainik Jagran, Raj Express and the other major papers just didnot print a single line. It was Free Press, an English daily from Indore that published it and also the Hindustan Times Bhopal edition.

Later small papers with lesser circulation also published it. But these Bhaskars and Jagrans blacked it out. Why? It seems vernaculars lose their steam once they get bigger in size and circulation. And their editors/owners start moving in the 'upper society' where they are asked at a drink, 'don't publish it, it's silly' and they are too ready to oblige the bureacrats.

I remember what an elderly editor of the sixties once told me. "When we used to get a few hundreds as salary, we were never scared of getting sacked and tore to shreds the people who fleeced and cheated but when you give Rs 1 lakh a month to editor and flashy cars apart from other faclities, they fear for their job and try to keep everybody happy". Isn't it horrible scenerio. Regional press ought to raise the voice of people but it just becomes the tool in the hands of suave bureaucrats who have stashed tens of crores in bank accounts.